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New Lt. Uhura Zoe Saldana: Don’t Ignore Me on the Set!

Zoe Saldana may be one cool lieutenant aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, but woe to the honcho who won’t give her feedback while filming.

Interviewed on the Double Down Film Show, the Star Trek star– who reprises the Nyota Uhura role made famous by Nichelle Nichols in the original TV series – isn’t shy about expressing her dislike for disinterested directors.

“You feel really neglected and disregarded,” Zoe (above) tells us of being given the cold shoulder.

“As an actor, there’s no worse feeling than feeling completely useless, where you were just hired for your voice and your face and you’re just supposed to say these lines and that’s it,” she tells host Pete Chatmon.

“If [directors] want to have their story be told right, they need to trust the fact that they wrote characters that are very complete and everybody that walks into this is going to have a different point of view,” continues Zoe, who made a big-screen splash playing Anamaria opposite Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean.

“I’m not saying that their point of view is going to be taken more into consideration, but it defin- itely needs to be considered. Period.

“That, and please voice how you feel. I can’t stand directors that you have to walk all the way over to them and ask them, ‘How was it?’ And they’re like, ‘Yea, it’s alright.’

But happy as Uhura.

“I’m sorry. Actors, we’re in a constant vulner- able state. We need a lot of encouragement from our coach, which is our director. We’re trusting the director – the leader of this org- anization.

“And when they’re sort of blasé about it – like, ‘Yea, it’s alright. I liked it’ – you just feel so, like, Why am I here?”

But Star Trek director JJ Abrams need not worry about Zoe’s wrath: She has only the kindest words for his on-set style.

Please give this message to Scotty Reid for me. He phoned and said Dr. Johnson, LaVena Johnson’s daughter, is trying to reach me regarding an article I wrote about LaVena and the way she was treated by the military.
Please give Scotty this information: that Dr. Johnson can reach me at the following:
Mac Walton
email: culturaldynmics@msn.com